Two abortion clinic workers plead guilty to murder

[zsdersw]

I don't see why that difference should separate those who can be legally killed from those who legally cannot be killed.

It's a biological fact. Needing an umbilical cord is not biological independence.

It's not dealing with absolutes to say that a system which accidentally kills human beings as part of its normal operation is uncivilized.

It is an absolute to say that life begins at conception... and that absolute belief is the basis for your proclamation of the system being uncivilized.

 

[zsdersw]

You might as well chastise me for not having an open mind about murder or rape. No sane person has an absolutely open mind.

When I witness a child being murdered in real life, I don't consider the validity of the reasons the murderer had for killing the child out of a desire to be "open minded". Should Americans have had an open mind about slavery or the holocaust? Do you profess to be open minded about discrimination against homosexuals?

Open-mindedness has its place. But without convictions we cease to use our brains.

Predictably, you run down the slippery slope. Try to avoid that.. it improves your credibility.

 

[Atreus21]

It's a biological fact. Needing an umbilical cord is not biological independence.

Needing someone to feed and clothe you isn't biological independence either.

It is an absolute to say that life begins at conception... and that absolute belief is the basis for your proclamation of the system being uncivilized.

It is no less absolute to say that life begins at birth, or at viability.

Okay, I'm calling a truce. I have to get to work.

 

[Atreus21]

Predictably, you run down the slippery slope. Try to avoid that.. it improves your credibility.

I don't think it's a slippery slope at all. 🙂

 

[airdata]

Having a child really helps you get a different point of view on the abortion debate.

To be perfectly honest...anybody who works in such a clinic should be put down. Don't want to sound too extreme, but when you're desensitized enough to cut a babies spinal cord with scissors... or tear their limbs off with clamps... you're basically a serial killer.

 

[zsdersw]

Needing someone to feed and clothe you isn't biological independence either.

Yes it is. Your dependence in one of sustaining life functions, not creating and forming them, as happens in the womb.

It is no less absolute to say that life begins at birth, or at viability.

Okay, I'm calling a truce. I have to get to work.

Yes it is. Such determinations are not made with the certainty that they are always correct 100% of the time, as yours are. The law sets an absolute because it must, but none of us are under the belief that it's always correct 100% of the time. This gets us back to the difference between what's legal and what's moral.

 

[zsdersw]

I don't think it's a slippery slope at all. 🙂

Of course you don't.

You bring up the holocaust, discrimination against homosexuals, and rape... no, not running down a slippery slope at all 🙄

 

[CitizenKain]

Nothing Atreus21 would enjoy more then some women dying in a back alley abortion.

 

[Atreus21]

Nothing Atreus21 would enjoy more then some women dying in a back alley abortion.

Yes, that's my true motivation. Dead women. YES. Gets me hot and bothered just thinking about it. You've outed me.

 

[Dominato3r]

WHy is this shit still being fought over?

In Canada you do not get to impose your personal religious and ethical views upon others:

R. v. Morgentaler [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30. As Chief Justice Dickson and Justice Lamer ruled forcing a woman to carry a fetus irrespective of her own "priorities and aspirations" was a clear infringement of her security of person as guaranteed by Section 7 and it could not be justified under Section 1 - the proportionality test. Justices Beetz and Estey in concurring reasons applied similar reasoning.

The decision whether to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision, a matter of conscience. I do not think there is or can be any dispute about that. The question is: whose conscience? Is the conscience of the woman to be paramount or the conscience of the state? I believe, for the reasons I gave in discussing the right to liberty, that in a free and democratic society it must be the conscience of the individual.
~ Madame Justice Wilson

 

[Mursilis]

In Canada you do not get to impose your personal religious and ethical views upon others:

Canada has no criminal laws at all? 😱 🙄

Of course you do - you just have to have enough other people share the same ethical standard.

 

[zinfamous]

who says a fertilized embryo is a human being form the beginning of conception?

neither Science (Biology) nor Medicine holds any sort of consensus on this detail, so you are grasping at straws.

...or are you authorized to handle the "true"definition of life and humanity, despite decades (and centuries) of failure to do so within the only two fields capable of reaching these conclusions?

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

It is no less absolute to say that life begins at birth, or at viability.

It is absolutely false to say that life begins at birth, conception or viability. Life is a continuum.

But I've pointed this out to you before, and you have disregarded it because you are not interested in facts or truth. You are interested in punishing women because you hate them.

 

[woolfe9999]

I'm pro-choice and disagree with Atreus21, but unless I missed something in his posts, evidence of "woman hating" is 404 not found.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I'm pro-choice and disagree with Atreus21, but unless I missed something in his posts, evidence of "woman hating" is 404 not found.

I'd like to see Atreus21 support his premise that consent to sex amounts to consent to pregnancy, noting foremost that consent to the violations to bodily integrity inherent in pregnancy must be explicit, and only slightly secondly that consent must be given to a person -- one cannot give consent to a non-person, and especially one that doesn't exist.

It is clear that Atreus21 believes that a sexually active woman deserves to serve out a 9-month sentence as an involuntary incubator for daring to engage in a non-negligent and consensual act simply because he does not feel that women should enjoy the right to do so, even while men, by a certain fortuity of nature, could never be subject to such a punishment.

Atreus21 is a classic misogynist primarily because he is a conservative Christian, and such misogyny is a pervasive attitude among people holding those backwards and destructive beliefs.

 

[woolfe9999]

Sorry, I don't buy the notion that pro-life stance=misogyny in every case. If someone actually believes that aborting a fetus is equivalent to murdering a baby then misogyny is not a very parsimonious explanation for why they want to criminalize abortion. He may be deeply befuddled on the morality of abortion, and that befuddlement may well be rooted in religion. However, while misogyny might in fact be a motive in a given case, it isn't a necessary component. Accordingly, you need more than just your own words which argue it as an inference to establish it in his case. It's much like claiming that opposition to illegal immigration = racism, or opposition to Israeli policies = anti-semitism. It may be true in some cases, but there is no absolute and necessary connection. The two aren't inexorably linked.

- wolf

 

[Ichigo]

As far as I can tell, both of the examples in the the OP are illegal (and honestly quite disturbing).

My question is, why is the OP asking "leftists" specifically if they're okay with either? (S)he's asking a "leftist" to defend either procedure? Spell out the agenda here.

 

[Dominato3r]

Canada has no criminal laws at all? 😱 🙄

Of course you do - you just have to have enough other people share the same ethical standard.

the only ethical views that matter in the case of abortion are those of the actual woman who is pregnant anything else is irrelevant.

 

[mizzou]

morally its hard to decide

medically, you could say "first breath"?

giving developing humans rights while they still grow inside you is troublesome.

but late term is so disgusting unless it's for safety of the mother or it's obviously terminal

 

[zsdersw]

I think it should be said that everything society has done and continues to do to persuade pregnant mothers to avoid having abortions--making alternatives more affordable and accessible, counseling, birth control education, etc.--are good. They're also effective; the abortion rate wouldn't have been on the decline for decades if they weren't.

 

[Mursilis]

the only ethical views that matter in the case of abortion are those of the actual woman who is pregnant anything else is irrelevant.

Because you say so? You're too ignorant to be involved in this discussion.

 

[Macamus Prime]

Who better to decide what a woman does with her body,.. than a man?

Good luck gents.

P.S. When you do approach the gubnament to stop pregnant women from aborting,... I would avoid bringing up morality, especially since:
1) pro-lifers have been know to shoot and kill abortion doctors (not all of course)
and
2) pro-lifers flat out lie to pregnant women;
http://cpcwatch.org/
http://www.prochoicenc.org/assets/bin/pdfs/2011NARAL_CPCReport_V05_web.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/opinion/25mon3.html
http://www.naral.org/media/fact-sheets/abortion-cpcs.pdf

Nice - murder and lies; in order to prevent what a woman chooses to do with her body.

 

[Atreus21]

As far as I can tell, both of the examples in the the OP are illegal (and honestly quite disturbing).

My question is, why is the OP asking "leftists" specifically if they're okay with either? (S)he's asking a "leftist" to defend either procedure? Spell out the agenda here.

He.

The challenge is for abortion supporters to justify why the act in the OP (severing the child's spine with scissors after birth) is horrific, when 8 years ago a legal procedure that was substantively no different (sucking the child's brain out with a catheter during birth) was perfectly acceptable to them, as is evident by the fact that they vigorously opposed the partial-birth abortion ban.

Most replies have been that the two procedures are not similar, and that's been the main source of debate in this thread.

 

[actuarial]

Needing someone to feed and clothe you isn't biological independence either.

It absolutely is. Here's the huge difference:

I can take care of any baby that has been taken to full term and birthed. I could (with medical assistance) even with one taken to the third trimester and birthed prematurely, though in this case there's a lesser chance of survival.

I cannot take care of a baby (regardless of medical assistance) that is in the first trimester and is birthed. Neither could anyone who is not the natural mother of the baby.

If a mother dies during child birth, or even before it after a sufficient amount of gestation, the baby can still live. If a mother dies 10 weeks into a pregnancy, there's no chance. There's your definition of biological independence.

 

[HomerJS]

I'm not asking legal questions. I'm asking moral ones. What's the moral difference between partial-birth abortion, which kills the child when it's mostly delivered, and killing the child after it's entirely delivered?

I'll answer your question with an example. Exact details unlikely but using to make a point

You are holding onto a rail on the outside of a skyscraper with one hand. You are holding onto another person with the other. After a period of time you realize you are incapable of pulling up the other person. You let that person go otherwise both would die.

Not debating the morality of the decision but would you be charged with murder?